The Scissor Paradox
Feb 10, 2025 by
Max van IJsselmuiden
This is part of my ongoing series exploring frustrating user experiences we encounter in everyday life. These real-world UX failures show how design thinking (or lack thereof) forgets common sense.
After some more renovating days, you’re working in the garden. To set out the terrace you’re planning on building, you’ll need some ropes and poles. You found some ropes and sticks that’ll do. As you set off to this task, you quickly realize that the rope is too long. No scissors in the house yet.
Off to the hardware store for some scissors. After searching and checking several lanes you finally found some office supplies and scissors. Perhaps a different store would have been better, but after all, you found scissors. Happy that you finally found the scissors, you quickly pay and head off. The cashier requested if you had a customer card of the store. After a ‘no’, the follow-up question was ‘Would you like to have one?’. You replied, ‘No, I’ll just have the scissors, thanks.‘
Arriving home, motivated to continue with the terrace you try to use the scissors. The scissors are wrapped in a hard plastic casing. You try to break the casing but it is extremely sturdy. Funnily enough, a part of your mind is telling you that some pair of scissors would do a great job in opening this package. You blame yourself for not realizing this earlier. After a solid two minutes of struggling you try a new approach: a sharp knife.
Some effort and brute force. Still unable to open the packaging. Auch! Worse so, you cut your thumb. Now you’re bleeding. Reaching for plasters – where did you leave those? Not in the kitchen, better check the bathroom.
Yes! You found them in the bathroom. The plasters are massive. They need to be cut…
Design isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about function. When design fails, we feel immediate frustration, even if we don’t recognize it as a design problem. These moments aren’t just annoyances—they’re design failures, symptoms of a deeper problem. Each represents a failure of design thinking, where creators lost sight of the actual humans who would use their products and systems.
The Scissor Paradox
February 10, 2025 by
Max van IJsselmuiden
This is part of my ongoing series exploring frustrating user experiences we encounter in everyday life. These real-world UX failures show how design thinking (or lack thereof) forgets common sense.
After some more renovating days, you’re working in the garden. To set out the terrace you’re planning on building, you’ll need some ropes and poles. You found some ropes and sticks that’ll do. As you set off to this task, you quickly realize that the rope is too long. No scissors in the house yet.
Off to the hardware store for some scissors. After searching and checking several lanes you finally found some office supplies and scissors. Perhaps a different store would have been better, but after all, you found scissors. Happy that you finally found the scissors, you quickly pay and head off. The cashier requested if you had a customer card of the store. After a ‘no’, the follow-up question was ‘Would you like to have one?’. You replied, ‘No, I’ll just have the scissors, thanks.‘
Arriving home, motivated to continue with the terrace you try to use the scissors. The scissors are wrapped in a hard plastic casing. You try to break the casing but it is extremely sturdy. Funnily enough, a part of your mind is telling you that some pair of scissors would do a great job in opening this package. You blame yourself for not realizing this earlier. After a solid two minutes of struggling you try a new approach: a sharp knife.
Some effort and brute force. Still unable to open the packaging. Auch! Worse so, you cut your thumb. Now you’re bleeding. Reaching for plasters – where did you leave those? Not in the kitchen, better check the bathroom.
Yes! You found them in the bathroom. The plasters are massive. They need to be cut…
Design isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about function. When design fails, we feel immediate frustration, even if we don’t recognize it as a design problem. These moments aren’t just annoyances—they’re design failures, symptoms of a deeper problem. Each represents a failure of design thinking, where creators lost sight of the actual humans who would use their products and systems.